BigTex trailers....anyone have anything good or bad to say about them?
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The only thing you have to watch is the tires that they put on at the
factory. I had a problem with one tire, and could not find another
tire to match. But the good news is this, thier customer service is awesome. I bought four new tires, upgraded to radials, the warranty
department said they would make an adjustment. I got home from my
vacation and there was a check in the mail for the full amount of what I had spent on the new tires. Would I buy another Big Tex trailer, YES.
factory. I had a problem with one tire, and could not find another
tire to match. But the good news is this, thier customer service is awesome. I bought four new tires, upgraded to radials, the warranty
department said they would make an adjustment. I got home from my
vacation and there was a check in the mail for the full amount of what I had spent on the new tires. Would I buy another Big Tex trailer, YES.
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Big Tex v.s P J trailers. both built in us. Car hauleres that is. LIke ford and chevy. get the one for the least money most options.
here is the deal with big-tex trailers..........they actual trailer is top notch, the company is bottom of the barrel though.
i have purchased 8 flatbed trailers this year, 7- 32'straight deck, and 1 45' straight deck 12k axles elec/hyd brakes.
the big tex were built the same as the ones i purchased, but they were almost 25% higher.
i just had a quote on 2 trailers they are as follows.
longhorn bigtex
32+5 flatbed/dovetail 2-10k axles elec brakes, no spare.$5860 $8440
30+5 flatbed/dovetail 2-10k axles elec brakes, no spare.$5475 $8176
my major beef with big tex is that they do not protect their dealers..if big tex sees you making money being a dealer for them, and they feel like they want in that market, they will pull your dealership, and open up a dealership of their own in the same town...the reason that a lot of small trailer places sell them, is because they will put the inventory out there on your lot without you having to pay for it up front, helps with cash flow on a small company.
i personally have never had any dealings with pj, but have heard a lot of good things about them.
chris
i have purchased 8 flatbed trailers this year, 7- 32'straight deck, and 1 45' straight deck 12k axles elec/hyd brakes.
the big tex were built the same as the ones i purchased, but they were almost 25% higher.
i just had a quote on 2 trailers they are as follows.
longhorn bigtex
32+5 flatbed/dovetail 2-10k axles elec brakes, no spare.$5860 $8440
30+5 flatbed/dovetail 2-10k axles elec brakes, no spare.$5475 $8176
my major beef with big tex is that they do not protect their dealers..if big tex sees you making money being a dealer for them, and they feel like they want in that market, they will pull your dealership, and open up a dealership of their own in the same town...the reason that a lot of small trailer places sell them, is because they will put the inventory out there on your lot without you having to pay for it up front, helps with cash flow on a small company.
i personally have never had any dealings with pj, but have heard a lot of good things about them.
chris
call and talk to shannon or jennifer, they are the owners, tell them chris from j-k referred you. i cannot think of any other trailer that i would buy over one of their, as they really pay attention to detail, and do not cut any corners. just a low overhead family owned company.
http://longhorntrailers.com/
chris
http://longhorntrailers.com/
chris
Thanks for the replies guys
So I went to a dealer today and looked at the 10ET and the 12ET today.(Those are car haulers, 10,000 pound and 12,000 pound) The truck I will mostly tow on the trailer is 6000 pounds, my pulling truck. Plus the 2600 the trailer weighs would make the whole thing weigh 8600 pounds where the 10,000 GVW trailer would suit me just fine. But I like how the 12,000gvw is built much heavier, has 16" 8 lug wheeles and has a 9400 pound payload, not 7400 like the 10ET. So if I ever need to haul my (or someone elses) one ton or whatever that wont be a problem. The price difference is only about $450 too.
So I think I just about made up my mind on getting the 12,000 pounder, then the salesman tells me I would need a clas A license to tow it. Well thats a flaw in the slaw right there. Why is it I can pull a 12,500 pound camper with a class C but not a car trailer that will probably only weigh 8600 pounds at the most even though its rated for 12,000?
BTW, I live in California
So I went to a dealer today and looked at the 10ET and the 12ET today.(Those are car haulers, 10,000 pound and 12,000 pound) The truck I will mostly tow on the trailer is 6000 pounds, my pulling truck. Plus the 2600 the trailer weighs would make the whole thing weigh 8600 pounds where the 10,000 GVW trailer would suit me just fine. But I like how the 12,000gvw is built much heavier, has 16" 8 lug wheeles and has a 9400 pound payload, not 7400 like the 10ET. So if I ever need to haul my (or someone elses) one ton or whatever that wont be a problem. The price difference is only about $450 too.
So I think I just about made up my mind on getting the 12,000 pounder, then the salesman tells me I would need a clas A license to tow it. Well thats a flaw in the slaw right there. Why is it I can pull a 12,500 pound camper with a class C but not a car trailer that will probably only weigh 8600 pounds at the most even though its rated for 12,000?
BTW, I live in California
I was sales manager at the Big Tex East plant in Mt. Pleasant,Tx. for awile and can tell you that they are top notch. One thing to keep in mind is that they are the "only" trailer builder with "product liability". There are a lot of fly-by-night dealers and builders out there to just turn a buck. Just the paint and prep of Big Tex is enough to make them them stand alone. They acid wash each trailer after running a gloved hand over them to catch any weld imperfections. This etches the steel for the paint to adhere better. And the primer base they use is the best on the market. Another note to quality is that their bare steel is housed under a building so it is factory clean before prep for painting. As for the dealer issue someone stated, in each dealer contract it is noted that a customer can buy factory direct and if you stop by the factory in Mt. Pleasant to meet Ricky Baker, you can probably make a pretty darn good deal on a trailer. FYI, just my opinion of being around the trailer industry most of my life. I'm in no way affiliated with Big Tex any longer. Just the best there is.
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they suck in my honest opinion. Too heavy, poorly built, Of course this opinion is not gonna fly here, but I make my living pulling GN trailers. Want references email me, Maybe they have changed in the last few years, I aint sure, cuz I WILL not bet my my household income on it
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I guess this will be fopaw for this website, but you my friend are full of it!!!!!!!!!!! I am a Texan and will promote "our" products wholeheartedly, but I can tell you that for the commercial hauler BT, is the BS way to go, farm boys, cowboys etc maybe, but not the bottomline boys, We make a living pulling the trailers, very few BIG TEX behind US. Unless you are Newbie to the biz, hope ya got a good welder buddy.
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Bullrack, right on! BigTex is topnotch all the way. Quality is second to none. I drove a truck for them a few years ago and was totally impressed by their manufacturing process.
Buy a PJ if all you care about is price. Buy a Big Tex if you want a trailer that looks good 6-8 years from now.
Buy a PJ if all you care about is price. Buy a Big Tex if you want a trailer that looks good 6-8 years from now.
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110 Posts
Driving a truck for them , vouching for them is more than honerable. But making money by pulling them is "Whole nuther thing" I guess its like anything else in life. We all can argue this and that etc, but I WILL NOT PULL A BIG TEX TRAILER to make my paycheck,........never owned one, WILL not take the chance............. Not that they are bad trailers but I will not bet my income on one from what I have seen others go thru..PERIOD
Well I can tell you that just from looking at them at the dealer they have way better quality and attention to details than any other brand that was there. They were also about $1000 more on the average compared to any other trailer.
Some of the things I noticed was the paint was just as good on the bottom side as it was on the top. A few other trailers I saw had parts of the frame that were just primer and there was overspray on everything.
All the steel throughout the whole trailer was a lot thicker than the comparable models by the other brands.
Nothing was bolted on the frame - everything was welded.
There were no open or exposed wires hanging down like on some other trailers.
There was no boxed sections of the frame or crossmembers where it could rust from the inside out. Another trailer I saw had every crossmember made of 3"x2" square tubing and the top and bottom of the cross members wern't even welded to the side rails. Just from driving in the rain could fill them up with water if it splashes in there right.
I also like how they all come with the Bulldog forged coupler instead of the pressed sheetmetal coupler.
I think the extra $1000 will be money well spent
Some of the things I noticed was the paint was just as good on the bottom side as it was on the top. A few other trailers I saw had parts of the frame that were just primer and there was overspray on everything.
All the steel throughout the whole trailer was a lot thicker than the comparable models by the other brands.
Nothing was bolted on the frame - everything was welded.
There were no open or exposed wires hanging down like on some other trailers.
There was no boxed sections of the frame or crossmembers where it could rust from the inside out. Another trailer I saw had every crossmember made of 3"x2" square tubing and the top and bottom of the cross members wern't even welded to the side rails. Just from driving in the rain could fill them up with water if it splashes in there right.
I also like how they all come with the Bulldog forged coupler instead of the pressed sheetmetal coupler.
I think the extra $1000 will be money well spent
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I don't have anything as heavy as 10k, but I have two Big-Tex trailers I bought new that I've been very happy with.
The first one I bought in 1995 was an ordinary 16' flat bed with 5,000 GVWR, used to haul construction supplies to build a new house. The house is about 30 miles from the nearest lumber yard/home supply store, and that trailer made probably a coupla hundred trips over the two years it took me to build the house. Then converted to normal use for moving household goods, hauling mesquite brush to the brush pile, etc.
The second one is a model year 2000 custom-made 5'x10' "golf cart" trailer, single axle with 4' sides. Used mostly for hauling a golf cart plus generator and other stuff for race weekends, but also used twice so for on an 800-mile trip to bring back a trailer-load of apples from the Rio Grande valley near the Colorado/New Mexico border. And used as a utility trailer any time I need one about that size. For example, used several trips to haul "re-mix" sand and gravel, plus bags of cement for pouring the the concrete floor in the barn we built last year. With a half-yard in the pickup and another half-yard in the trailer, we could haul a yard at a time. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/warmsmile.gif
The first one I bought in 1995 was an ordinary 16' flat bed with 5,000 GVWR, used to haul construction supplies to build a new house. The house is about 30 miles from the nearest lumber yard/home supply store, and that trailer made probably a coupla hundred trips over the two years it took me to build the house. Then converted to normal use for moving household goods, hauling mesquite brush to the brush pile, etc.
The second one is a model year 2000 custom-made 5'x10' "golf cart" trailer, single axle with 4' sides. Used mostly for hauling a golf cart plus generator and other stuff for race weekends, but also used twice so for on an 800-mile trip to bring back a trailer-load of apples from the Rio Grande valley near the Colorado/New Mexico border. And used as a utility trailer any time I need one about that size. For example, used several trips to haul "re-mix" sand and gravel, plus bags of cement for pouring the the concrete floor in the barn we built last year. With a half-yard in the pickup and another half-yard in the trailer, we could haul a yard at a time. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/warmsmile.gif
Man I love how people say "I've never owned one, but they are junk." Trust me, like I said before, I'm not promoting them for profit because I no longer work for them, but Big Tex did not become the largest trailer builder in the world by being junk. I'll tell you something else, Big Tex is the company that started using torque tubes in trailer lengths over 32'. First trailer builder period to start using this idea to stiffen up trailers. Before I started hauling cattle with class 8 trucks, I ran hotshot 40' goosenecks with one ton trucks for 6 years. I started with West Wind Trailers out of Duncan, OK. Yea, they were lighter, but when a customer set a 2000# pallet on one edge to push over to the middle or to put two side by side, It was permanantly warped. Do alittle research, Big Tex is the only builder out there with product liability and are also members of NATB(North American Trailer Builders), not to mention Ricky Baker was nominated "Entrepreneur of the Year" in '01. One other thing, it is hard to buy a comparable trailer(like some companies' angle-iron generic 16' and 18' bumper- pulls) because most Big Tex Trailers are pipe tops. Their regular models outdo most co's top-of-the-line model.
A few more thoughts about this, Big Tex uses square type adjustable couplers on all goosenecks and true Dexter 12K axles. Most goosenecks only have either 10K or HD 10K axles and most are Quality Brand which are inferior to Dexter. Big Tex is one of a few gooseneck builders that even make a 25,900GVWR trailer. Most are 22K. Another thing is that if a person can dream it, and engineering signs off on it, Big Tex will build it. They probably give more trailers away each year than most companies build. Big Tex made several tandem dual gooseneck dumps painted chamelean(spelling?) colors for customers(6k paint jobs), not for the faint at heart. How many trailer builders even have paint boots? I've had one West Wind that was painted in the rain, far cry from Big Tex. Small utility trilers, Big Tex uses cambered axles, how many people actually know what's under their trailer? If you have a straight axle and load it down, what happens to those wheels and tires? Yep, if you have a cambered axle, and your not loaded down, not much weight are on those tires edges so no irregular wear. When cambered axles are loaded down, which most trailers are most of the time, the axle then straightens out, allowing the tires to wear flat. Just a whole meal for thought before you buy just any trailer.
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Driving a truck for them , vouching for them is more than honerable. But making money by pulling them is "Whole nuther thing" I guess its like anything else in life. We all can argue this and that etc, but I WILL NOT PULL A BIG TEX TRAILER to make my paycheck,........never owned one, WILL not take the chance............. Not that they are bad trailers but I will not bet my income on one from what I have seen others go thru..PERIOD
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Do you actually have a point? You are talking in circles. I dont like bigtex cause... My X g/f's moms b/f's sisters uncle twice removed says that they aint no good cause a guy run over his best huntin dawg with one.
Driving a truck for them , vouching for them is more than honerable. But making money by pulling them is "Whole nuther thing" I guess its like anything else in life. We all can argue this and that etc, but I WILL NOT PULL A BIG TEX TRAILER to make my paycheck,........never owned one, WILL not take the chance............. Not that they are bad trailers but I will not bet my income on one from what I have seen others go thru..PERIOD
[/ QUOTE ]
Do you actually have a point? You are talking in circles. I dont like bigtex cause... My X g/f's moms b/f's sisters uncle twice removed says that they aint no good cause a guy run over his best huntin dawg with one.
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